One Step Forward, One Step Back
by Firebirdd
Summary: Neil struggles to cope with his son's leukaemia. Revised prequel to RN.
1. Chapter 1

**Edited Author's Note: **After the ending of The Bill, I went back and altered this story slightly from the original to make it fit within the canon-verse. In essence, I just re-added Pippa to the story (I'd originally had her in denial in Spain) and clarified what the nurse and doctor found with Jake. I imagine this story as fitting into the canon-verse the night after _Suffer in Silence_, so Jake was diagnosed with leukaemia the day before. The original story can be found in the second chapter - this is the updated version.

* * *

_This story was originally posted for the April fic challenge on sierra oscar . co . uk**.**_

**Title: **One Step Forward, One Step Back

**Chapter**: Oneshot

**Rating:** Teen for some medium swearing

**Spoilers/Timeline**:For the upcoming Neil storyline – what was shown in the previews. If you haven't seen the previews stop reading now.

**Pairing/Main Characters**: Neil, Jake with cameos from nearly everyone else. Some hints of Grace/Neil, but blink and you'll miss it.

**Summary**: Neil struggles to deal with Jake's illness, and it's starting to get noticed.

Prompt list - diamond, splinter, blossom, apple, snake, soil, transient, light, hope, lasagne

_"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." Harriet Beecher Stowe_

* * *

Neil glared at the open briefcase on his desk: full of files that had been haphazardly shoved in, it would not fit the last couple of folders that had (belatedly) landed on his desk at the end of the day. Cursing at the delay, he pulled out all the paperwork, shuffled them into a neater stack, and replaced it inside the briefcase. Snapping the case shut, he automatically double-checked he'd switched off his computer and locked his filing cabinet and top drawer. His desk was tidy, blinds drawn, light off, he was ready to leave. Precisely on time, for once, he mused as he shut his office door firmly behind him.

Shrugging his arms through the sleeves of his coat, he was finally ready. Sweeping his eyes quickly across CID, where nothing looked out of place, he headed for the door.

"Gov," Stevie's voice called, halting Neil in his tracks.

"What?" the word came out sharper than Neil had intended, but he found he didn't care all that much given Stevie was preventing him from leaving the station.

"Coming for a drink?" Stevie asked looking slightly surprised at the DI's tone but choosing to ignore it. "Mixed uniform and CID drinks tonight."

"No," aware his tone was still sharp; Neil made a concerted effort to soften his voice. "No, I, er, have to be somewhere. You all have fun."

"You too, sir," Stevie replied automatically.

Neil made a non-committal noise, before leaving hurriedly.

Stevie glanced askance at the other officers who were in the process of packing up after the day.

"What's going on with the DI?" she asked.

"Who knows what's ever going inside _his _head," Jo said from her post leaning against Grace's desk. Decked out in her civvies, Jo had agreed to wait for her old CID colleagues tonight.

"I've worked with Manson the longest," Terry chimed in. "If there's one thing I know for certain it's that at any given time, there's no way of knowing for certain why he's acting like he is."

"Maybe it's woman troubles," Stevie suggested with a sly grin, gaze flickering over at Grace who tucked her hair behind her ear, oblivious to the conversation as she finished typing something on her screen with a flourish.

"Done," Grace pronounced triumphantly, looking up and looking confused as to the looks directed at her. "Ready to go?"

* * *

"Hi, Nancy, Ellie," Neil said as he paused by the nurses' station. "How'd he do today?"

"Hi Mr Manson," Ellie, a young, plump and pleasant nurse smiled warmly at him. "We had a good day today, even managed to eat most of the sandwich he had for lunch. He's just in the kids' room at the moment."

"Thanks," Neil replied quietly. He altered his course, heading for the kids' room.

So late in the day it was full of parents and siblings and other visitors, but the sick children themselves were obviously starting to tire. It looked like most of the younger ones had already been taken off to bed, and Neil spotted his own boy sitting in a corner with his back to the door. A nurse was fussing over him. Neil's steps hastened involuntarily.

"I don't want to go to my room yet," Jake was stubbornly protesting.

"Sweetie, you look exhausted and rather unwell –" the red-haired nurse began.

"Yeah, gee, wonder why that could be?" Jake retorted crankily. "And don't call me 'sweetie'!"

"Erica!" the nurse looked over to see a trainee nurse struggling with a combative three year old. Sighing, she threw up her hands and went over to help.

"Hey, Jake," Neil said quietly, moving to sit opposite his son in the cushioned window seat.

"Dad," Jake acknowledged briefly, before looking back out through the window, hugging his knees to his chest. Neil followed his gaze, watching the pinprick lights on the street below them move home to their destinations.

"Ellie tells me that you had a good day," Neil said, hating how inane he sounded. He didn't know what to say to his son, whose naturally pale complexion was accentuated by the dark colours of the familiar, worn and too-large jersey he wore.

"Yeah," Jake sighed. "Highlight was not throwing up after lunch."

The bitterness in Jake's voice drove like a splinter into his heart.

"Well, at least that's something," Neil said. He was many things; an intuitive and intelligent detective, a crafty interviewer, had grown to be a decent (if not brilliant) people-manager. One thing Neil Manson was not was a positive person; he'd never really gone in for all that 'bright tomorrow' crap. But the idea of making his son feel like there was no hope offended him to the core. For Jake's sake, he was trying to be positive, but it didn't come naturally.

"What'd you do today?" Jake asked suddenly after a brief, strained silence, looking directly at his father's face for the first time since Neil had sat down.

"Well, caught up on some paperwork," Neil said lightly. In truth, most of the day had been paperwork, from yesterday's cases that he'd missed while  
at the hospital for Jake's scans or, worse, from last week that he hadn't had time to do. "But I spent some of the day with Jo, Grace, Stevie and Terry."

"Oh yeah?" Jake asked, interest clearly growing. "What happened?"

* * *

"Neil not coming tonight?" Smithy asked upon seeing Stevie, Jo, Terry and Grace enter the pub.

"Nope," Terry replied, signalling the barman.

"He 'had somewhere else to be'," Stevie added, making air quotes with her fingers.

"Stevie reckons he's got woman issues," Jo said, rolling her eyes to demonstrate her lack of confidence in that theory.

"Manson? Oh come on, how's he going to get a woman to stand him - hypnosis?" Max said crudely.

"Er, pot, kettle, black?" Grace said pointedly before belatedly adding. "_Sarge_." The surrounding officers sniggered.

Smithy shifted uncomfortably after affording Grace a small smile, opening his mouth as if wanting to say something but then stopping himself.

"Why do you ask?" Jo asked.

"Oh, nothing important. Just wanted his opinion on allocating resources," Smithy replied. "I'll ask him tomorrow I suppose."

"Want a refill, Smithy?" Terry asked.

"Please," Smithy said with a grateful smile.

* * *

"I'm not hungry," Jake's bottom lip protruded as he sat with his arms crossed.

"Come on, Jake," Neil urged as gently as he could. "Aunt Sarah made it especially for you – she knows you love lasagne,"

Thank god for his sister. Hospital food was appalling, and given Neil's limited cooking ability he was intensely grateful that his sister had cooked a week's worth of food for Jake, all packed away in the hospital fridge and freezer. "And if you eat it all there's even some apple pie for desert."

"It tastes great, Dad, I'm just not hungry, okay?" Jake's voice rose. He looked stubbornly down at the blankets.

"I know," Neil said, defeated. "Look, I'll put it back in the fridge and if you're hungry again we can get it back out, have a midnight snack."

Jake remained silent as Neil carried out the plates, forks and Tupperware container neatly labelled Manson that had contained the food, taking them into the parent's kitchen that was attached to the ward.

"Hallo, here's another one," a booming voice came from the coffee pot as Neil entered the kitchen and headed for the sink.

"Sorry?" he asked, looking over to see a short, pudgy man by the machine. He'd evidentially been addressing the equally plump middle-aged woman at the table who nursed a cup of tea.

"Taking bets on how many parents come back with partially eaten food," the man replied.

Neil shrugged, and turned the tap on. "Wasn't hungry tonight."

"Cup of tea?" the man offered unexpectedly. On seeing Neil's taken aback expression, he smiled warmly. "Sorry, getting ahead of myself. My names Toby Roberts, and that's my wife, Mary. Our daughter Annie is nine and has ALL*."

"Neil Manson," Neil replied. Pausing to take a steadying breath, he continued tightly, "Jake's ten. We...they...diagnosed him with ALL yesterday but he's not responding to the treatment properly...they're reviewing his bloods and such to see what they can do."

"It's the uncertainty that's the killer," Mary said understandingly. "We just thank God that Annie was diagnosed quickly and that her treatment has gone smoothly." Everyone in the room knew that the unspoken words hanging off the end of that sentence were _so far_.

"Not sure how much He had to do with it," Neil muttered bitterly, but his comments only met calm placidity from the Roberts.

"It's perfectly normal to question Him in these times," Toby said patronisingly. "Sugar? Milk?"

The man's tone grated, but Neil focussed on the offer of a hot, caffeinated beverage. He didn't have the energy to get through to him.

"One sugar, just a little bit of milk thanks," Neil replied, washing the forks and plates, the meaningless labour making him feel marginally less useless.

"You're very dedicated," Mary remarked. Neil glanced at her in askance. "Oh, I saw you here all through yesterday as well."

Neil shrugged as he placed the barely-touched food back in the fridge.

"Thanks for the tea. I need, uh, I need to get back to him."

"We understand," Mary said. "I'm sure we'll see you around." Toby nodded to him with a smile.

Neil raised his mug in thanks, before leaving quickly, eager to get away from the understanding in their eyes.

* * *

"And then he landed in all the shit from the dumpster," Nate crowed, to a chorus of semi-drunken laughter. Leon sulked next to him.

"It's not fair," Leon grumped. "Why do you never end up covered in crap?"

"At least it wasn't a dead body this time, Leon," Mel pointed out from beside him.

"Dead body?" Kirsty asked, wide-eyed with surprise.

"Yeah, so, Leon's pursuing a suspect," Smithy leant in to contribute to the story.

"How many times is he going to tell that story?" Grace asked, rolling her eyes and sipping her drink.

"It is a funny one, Grace," Mickey defended the Inspector.

"There certainly does seem to be a rash of people shoving dumpsters into our paths, though, hey Mickey?" Stevie teased him.

Mickey mock-glared at her as Jo laughed loudly at him.

* * *

"Not watching TV, Jake?" Neil asked as he entered the room to find Jake still sitting as he'd left him.

"Makes my eyes hurt," the monosyllabic response came. Neil sighed, frustration rising in him. He hated the fact that he didn't know what to say to Jake to alleviate how ill he felt. The thing that made it worse was that Jake didn't know what to say to him. They were like two people playing that Wii boxing game, whatever it was called, with each other – a mockery of a real interaction. There'd be moments, like when Neil told Jake about exciting cases (which were highly embellished and edited highlights) where he felt he was getting somewhere but most of the time it was just sitting in silence, staring at the TV.

Still, there was nowhere else Neil could or would rather be. Philippa and Liam had been there all day, and Neil was damned if he was going to let his position in Jake's life be usurped, especially in this time. As difficult as it was to sit with his baby boy while he was pumped full of toxic chemicals, he had to be there. It was his _son_, who Neil loved more than anything in the world, and he was going to do everything he could to make it as good as it could be.

"What's that?" Neil's eye had caught a familiar looking set of books stacked on Jake's bedside table.

"Uncle Richard came to see me," Jake said as he followed his father's gaze, referencing his godfather and Neil's best friend. "Brought some books for me to read."

"The Lord of the Rings," Neil breathed, picking up the first book. An unexpected surge of warmth filled him as he stared at its battered cover. "This was my favourite series as a kid. I leant it to your Uncle Ricky ages ago."

"Uncle Rick said you read them all the time at school," Jake said.

"Yeah I did," Neil said, mind flashing back to nights spent under the covers with a flashlight to avoid the prefects patrolling the hallways. "Have  
you read them?"

The fact that he had to ask galled him.

"No," Jake replied. "I tried to, but the words kept blurring."

"I'd read it to you, but you're probably a bit too old to want that," Neil said absently, opening the front cover and smiling at the sight of his name written in the straggly hand of a twelve-year-old boy.

"You used to read to me all the time," Jake said. "I remember you'd get home from work, and mum would yell at you for keeping me up late and making me laugh with your funny voices."

"Good times," Neil smiled at him.

"Read to me," the words exploded from his son's mouth. "Please?"

A smile spread across Neil's face, and was returned by an identical one on his son's face.

"Okay," Neil said, moving to sit back in his chair by the side of the bed. "Ready?"

"Go go go," Jake said with a small smile. Neil chuckled, glad to see a return of humour in his son. He opened the book to the first page and cleared his throat as Jake wriggled under the bedcovers, lying on his side to face his dad.

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton," Neil began.

When soft snores started issuing from Jake's still form, two chapters later, Neil marked the page and set it back on the table beside the bed, making a mental note to thank Ricky. Doing his best to be quiet, he opened his briefcase and pulled out the first case file.

* * *

Stevie dashed through reception, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other as she waited for a smirking Leon to buzz her through. A combination of a banging hangover and poor traffic (and perhaps a general inability to set her alarm correctly) had resulted in her running – she glanced at her watch, 8.20 – twenty minutes late for work, again. No doubt she'd earn another of DI Manson's bitchy and snarky reprimands for it. Finally pushing through the glass door, she dashed up the stairs.

Entering CID, she didn't bother glancing to the side, diving instead for her chair and waiting for the inevitable reprimand. When none was forthcoming, she looked around in confusion.

"Hangover, sarge?" Mickey asked cheekily.

"Shut it, you," Stevie glared at him. "Your fault anyway. Where's the DI?"

* * *

"Sorry," Jake gasped. He'd been eating breakfast when the nausea had overpowered him.

"It's okay," Neil said, feeling slightly sick himself with the smell of the vomit that had sprayed on his clothes and on Jake's sheets.

"I don't like this," Jake half-sobbed. Neil rubbed his back gently, wishing fervently that the nurse would hurry up.

"Oh," it was Ellie, looking tired from her night shift. "Now, now, it's all right, Jake, we'll get you cleaned up in no time."

Neil couldn't help but admire the young woman's efficiency as she calmed Jake down and reassured both of them with a smile and comment that hospital food made her nauseous too. She got Jake off the bed and in the bathroom as Neil dug through the bag for a fresh set of clothes. He passed them into the bathroom as Ellie stripped the bed with alarming quickness, swapping the soiled linens for clean ones which were carried in by a trainee nurse.

Neil could hear the taps turn on in the bathroom as Ellie plumped the pillows on the bed.

"Mr Manson, I'm just going to get the doctor on call to come in and have a look at your son," she said. "Just routine."

Neil nodded as she left.

"Sorry about your suit, Dad," Jake said in a subdued voice, emerging from the bathroom five minutes later.

"It's okay, I'll just drop it off before work," Neil said, reflexively checking the time on the clock. Cursing inwardly, he helped Jake get back into bed then grabbed his own overnight bag and ducked into the bathroom, washing off quickly. He'd have to stop off by home before work and pick up a spare clean suit as well, for the next day, Neil thought as he wrestled his trousers on. He stepped back into the room to find himself face to face with Ellie and Dr Maitland, one of the junior doctors attached to Jake's consultant paediatrician. They were looking at a piece of paper, and met his gaze with a look he'd seen - and worn himself - all too often.

It was the look of someone about to do a death knock.

Heart heavy in his chest, Neil walked over to the bed where Jake sat up looking subdued. Taking his hand, he faced the two doctors, determined to remain strong for his son. They'd already been told leukaemia, it couldn't get much worse...

* * *

Neil's gaze drifted down to the clock in his car – 8.25am. Crap. He'd gone home to find a stack of mail and no clean clothes, having not had the time to do the laundry. Neil had haphazardly bundled his dirty shirts into the washing machine, then realised from the smell he'd left a carton of milk on the counter when he'd last been home...two days ago? That had needed to be thrown out, along with the magazine catalogues for – among other things – maternity wear and tricycles. The stack of bills had had to be scrunched into the side pocket of his bulging briefcase.

_Shit_, Neil cursed again as he stalked through reception, his glare causing the smirk on PC Taylor's face to fall right off. Pushing through the door he trotted up the stairs and into his office, pulling out the stack of files and grabbing the ones off the top.

"Rough morning, gov?" Mickey asked, cheeky grin on his face. Neil felt an irrational surge of anger well up in him: Mickey had doubtless spent the night getting sloshed, while he'd spent the night surrounded by the beeping machines hooked up to his son.

"Lilly didn't sign the witness statement," Manson barked, slapping the file down on Mickey's desk. "Stevie, you didn't complete the Incident form fully, and Grace, CPS wants Luke Powers' trousers sent for analysis."

"Gov, about that obbo on –" Max began, hurrying after the DI as he headed back to his office.

"Has any new evidence come to light yesterday to suggest that Franklin is involved?" Neil demanded, turning around.

"No, but –"

"Then what you have is circumstantial. I can't justify the cost, DS Carter, bring me evidence and then we'll discuss an obbo," Neil snapped, before turning back around.

The door slammed shut in Max's face.

"How'm I supposed to get the evidence he wants if I can't mount an obbo?" Max seethed in frustration.

Inside his office, Neil switched on his computer and waited for it to power up. His gaze drifted down to the photo of Jake that rested next to it and without thinking he reached over and slammed it facedown before furiously typing his password in.

One step forward in his relationship with Jake, one step back in Jake's health. He'd been grateful to Dr Maitland for her cool, detached and factual manner in delivering the news, allowing him to deal with Jake's emotions and questions rather than his own. For whatever reason, Jake was not responding to the first-line of drugs properly, and Dr Maitland had assured him that the second-line treatments could be just as effective. Neil knew he was a smart man, but the differences she'd outlined between the two drugs seemed trivial: if the first wouldn't work, why would the second if they were supposed to do the same job?

He hated having to depend on other professionals to explain his son's medical condition to him. And he hated being at work when every fibre in his body screamed at him to sit with Jake. But Pippa _and Liam_ were there and she'd promised to ring him if they got any more news.

None of which helped. All he wanted was his healthy boy back - even if it meant he was in Spain and not close to him - but Neil couldn't make that happen. The only thing he could do was sleep in a painful chair in a hospital ward.

FIN

* ALL – acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the most common form of leukaemia found in children.


	2. Chapter 2

The original version of this fic:

_**This story was posted for the April fic challenge on sierra oscar . co . uk**_

**Title: **One Step Forward, One Step Back

**Chapter**: Oneshot

**Rating:** Teen for some medium swearing

**Spoilers/Timeline**:For the upcoming Neil storyline – what was shown in the previews. If you haven't seen the previews stop reading now.

**Pairing/Main Characters**: Neil, Jake with cameos from nearly everyone else. Some hints of Grace/Neil, but blink and you'll miss it.

**Summary**: Neil struggles to deal with Jake's illness, and it's starting to get noticed.

**Author's notes**: I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use this fantastic challenge to write something for Neil and Jake. What I wanted to do was present an evening and morning in their lives to demonstrate how they might be affected. As the storyline hasn't aired yet in the UK, let alone in Australia, I've been deliberately vague on the details of Jake's illness and his initial reaction to being with his dad. I've extrapolated from what we were shown and the nurse in the previews said about him. My keyboard and fingers ran away from me (unfortunately for the university essays I should be writing!) so it's a fair bit longer than I'd planned. Hope you enjoy it!

Prompt list - diamond, splinter, blossom, apple, snake, soil, transient, light, hope, lasagne

_"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." Harriet Beecher Stowe_

* * *

Neil glared at the open briefcase on his desk: full of files that had been haphazardly shoved in, it would not fit the last couple of folders that had (belatedly) landed on his desk at the end of the day. Cursing at the delay, he pulled out all the paperwork, shuffled them into a neater stack, and replaced it inside the briefcase. Snapping the case shut, he automatically double-checked he'd switched off his computer and locked his filing cabinet and top drawer. His desk was tidy, blinds drawn, light off, he was ready to leave. Precisely on time, for once, he mused as he shut his office door firmly behind him.

Shrugging his arms through the sleeves of his coat, he was finally ready. Sweeping his eyes quickly across CID, where nothing looked out of place, he headed for the door.

"Gov," Stevie's voice called, halting Neil in his tracks.

"What?" the word came out sharper than Neil had intended, but he found he didn't care all that much given Stevie was preventing him from leaving the station.

"Coming for a drink?" Stevie asked looking slightly surprised at the DI's tone but choosing to ignore it. "Mixed uniform and CID drinks tonight."

"No," aware his tone was still sharp; Neil made a concerted effort to soften his voice. "No, I, er, have to be somewhere. You all have fun."

"You too, sir," Stevie replied automatically.

Neil made a non-committal noise, before leaving hurriedly.

Stevie glanced askance at the other officers who were in the process of packing up after the day.

"What's going on with the DI?" she asked.

"Who knows what's ever going inside _his_head," Jo said from her post leaning against Grace's desk. Decked out in her civvies, Jo had agreed to wait for her old CID colleagues tonight.

"I've worked with Manson the longest," Terry chimed in. "If there's one thing I know for certain it's that at any given time, there's no way of knowing for certain why he's acting like he is."

"Maybe it's woman troubles," Stevie suggested with a sly grin, gaze flickering over at Grace who tucked her hair behind her ear, oblivious to the conversation as she finished typing something on her screen with a flourish.

"Done," Grace pronounced triumphantly, looking up and looking confused as to the looks directed at her. "Ready to go?"

* * *

"Hi, Nancy, Ellie," Neil said as he paused by the nurses' station. "How'd he do today?"

"Hi Mr Manson," Ellie, a young, plump and pleasant nurse smiled warmly at him. "We had a good day today, even managed to eat most of the sandwich he had for lunch. He's just in the kids' room at the moment."

"Thanks," Neil replied quietly. He altered his course, heading for the kids' room.

So late in the day it was full of parents and siblings and other visitors, but the sick children themselves were obviously starting to tire. It looked like most of the younger ones had already been taken off to bed, and Neil spotted his own boy sitting in a corner with his back to the door. A nurse was fussing over him. Neil's steps hastened involuntarily.

"I don't want to go to my room yet," Jake was stubbornly protesting.

"Sweetie, you look exhausted and rather unwell –" the red-haired nurse began.

"Yeah, gee, wonder why that could be?" Jake retorted crankily. "And don't call me 'sweetie'!"

"Erica!" the nurse looked over to see a trainee nurse struggling with a combative three year old. Sighing, she threw up her hands and went over to help.

"Hey, Jake," Neil said quietly, moving to sit opposite his son in the cushioned window seat.

"Dad," Jake acknowledged briefly, before looking back out through the window, hugging his knees to his chest. Neil followed his gaze, watching the pinprick lights on the street below them move home to their destinations.

"Ellie tells me that you had a good day," Neil said, hating how inane he sounded. He didn't know what to say to his son, whose naturally pale complexion was accentuated by the dark colours of the familiar, worn and too-large jersey he wore.

"Yeah," Jake sighed. "Highlight was not throwing up after lunch."

The bitterness in Jake's voice drove like a splinter into his heart.

"Well, at least that's something," Neil said. He was many things; an intuitive and intelligent detective, a crafty interviewer, had grown to be a decent (if not brilliant) people-manager. One thing Neil Manson was not was a positive person; he'd never really gone in for all that 'bright tomorrow' crap. But the idea of making his son feel like there was no hope offended him to the core. For Jake's sake, he was trying to be positive, but it didn't come naturally.

"What'd you do today?" Jake asked suddenly after a brief, strained silence, looking directly at his father's face for the first time since Neil had sat down.

"Well, caught up on some paperwork," Neil said lightly. In truth, most of the day had been paperwork, from yesterday's cases that he'd missed while  
at the hospital for Jake's scans or, worse, from last week that he hadn't had time to do. "But I spent some of the day with Jo, Grace, Stevie and Terry."

"Oh yeah?" Jake asked, interest clearly growing. "What happened?"

* * *

"Neil not coming tonight?" Smithy asked upon seeing Stevie, Jo, Terry and Grace enter the pub.

"Nope," Terry replied, signalling the barman.

"He 'had somewhere else to be'," Stevie added, making air quotes with her fingers.

"Stevie reckons he's got woman issues," Jo said, rolling her eyes to demonstrate her lack of confidence in that theory.

"Manson? Oh come on, how's he going to get a woman to stand him - hypnosis?" Max said crudely.

"Er, pot, kettle, black?" Grace said pointedly before belatedly adding. "_Sarge_." The surrounding officers sniggered.

Smithy shifted uncomfortably after affording Grace a small smile, opening his mouth as if wanting to say something but then stopping himself.

"Why do you ask?" Jo asked.

"Oh, nothing important. Just wanted his opinion on allocating resources," Smithy replied. "I'll ask him tomorrow I suppose."

"Want a refill, Smithy?" Terry asked.

"Please," Smithy said with a grateful smile.

* * *

"I'm not hungry," Jake's bottom lip protruded as he sat with his arms crossed.

"Come on, Jake," Neil urged as gently as he could. "Aunt Sarah made it especially for you – she knows you love lasagne,"

Thank god for his sister. Hospital food was appalling, and given Neil's limited cooking ability he was intensely grateful that his sister had cooked a week's worth of food for Jake, all packed away in the hospital fridge and freezer. "And if you eat it all there's even some apple pie for desert."

"It tastes great, Dad, I'm just not hungry, okay?" Jake's voice rose. He looked stubbornly down at the blankets.

"I know," Neil said, defeated. "Look, I'll put it back in the fridge and if you're hungry again we can get it back out, have a midnight snack."

Jake remained silent as Neil carried out the plates, forks and Tupperware container neatly labelled Manson that had contained the food, taking them into the parent's kitchen that was attached to the ward.

"Hallo, here's another one," a booming voice came from the coffee pot as Neil entered the kitchen and headed for the sink.

"Sorry?" he asked, looking over to see a short, pudgy man by the machine. He'd evidentially been addressing the equally plump middle-aged woman at the table who nursed a cup of tea.

"Taking bets on how many parents come back with partially eaten food," the man replied.

Neil shrugged, and turned the tap on. "Wasn't hungry tonight."

"Cup of tea?" the man offered unexpectedly. On seeing Neil's taken aback exp ression, he smiled warmly. "Sorry, getting ahead of myself. My names Toby Roberts, and that's my wife, Mary. Our daughter Annie is eight and has ALL*."

"Neil Manson," Neil replied. Pausing to take a steadying breath, he continued tightly, "Jake's eleven. They haven't been able to diagnose him yet."

"It's the uncertainty that's the killer," Mary said understandingly. "We just thank God that Annie was diagnosed quickly."

"Not sure how much He had to do with it," Neil muttered bitterly, but his comments only met calm placidity from the Roberts.

"It's perfectly normal to question Him in these times," Toby said patronisingly. "Sugar? Milk?"

The man's tone grated, but Neil focussed on the offer of a hot, caffeinated beverage. He didn't have the energy to get through to him.

"One sugar, just a little bit of milk thanks," Neil replied, washing the forks and plates, the meaningless labour making him feel marginally less useless.

"You're very dedicated," Mary remarked. Neil glanced at her in askance. "Oh, I saw you here all of yesterday as well."

Neil shrugged as he placed the barely-touched food back in the fridge.

"Thanks for the tea. I need, uh, I need to get back to him."

"We understand," Mary said. "I'm sure we'll see you around." Toby nodded to him with a smile.

Neil raised his mug in thanks, before leaving quickly, eager to get away from the understanding in their eyes.

* * *

"And then he landed in all the shit from the dumpster," Nate crowed, to a chorus of semi-drunken laughter. Leon sulked next to him.

"It's not fair," Leon grumped. "Why do you never end up covered in crap?"

"At least it wasn't a dead body this time, Leon," Mel pointed out from beside him.

"Dead body?" Kirsty asked, wide-eyed with surprise.

"Yeah, so, Leon's pursuing a suspect," Smithy leant in to contribute to the story.

"How many times is he going to tell that story?" Grace asked, rolling her eyes and sipping her drink.

"It is a funny one, Grace," Mickey defended the Inspector.

"There certainly does seem to be a rash of people shoving dumpsters into our paths, though, hey Mickey?" Stevie teased him.

Mickey mock-glared at her as Jo laughed loudly at him.

* * *

"Not watching TV, Jake?" Neil asked as he entered the room to find Jake still sitting as he'd left him.

"Makes my eyes hurt," the monosyllabic response came. Neil sighed, frustration rising in him. He hated the fact that he didn't know what to say to Jake to alleviate how ill he felt. The thing that made it worse was that Jake didn't know what to say to him. They were like two people playing that Wii boxing game, whatever it was called, with each other – a mockery of a real interaction. There'd be moments, like when Neil told Jake about exciting cases (which were highly embellished and edited highlights) where he felt he was getting somewhere but most of the time it was just sitting in silence, staring at the TV.

Still, there was nowhere else Neil could or would rather be. With Philippa in Spain – "I have a big case on, Neil, I can't deal with this!" (a textbook case of denial if you asked him) – he was the only person Jake had. And that had to count for something, that he was there.

"What's that?" Neil's eye had caught a familiar looking set of books stacked on Jake's bedside table.

"Uncle Richard came to see me," Jake said as he followed his father's gaze, referencing his godfather and Neil's best friend. "Brought some books for me to read."

"The Lord of the Rings," Neil breathed, picking up the first book. An unexpected surge of warmth filled him as he stared at its battered cover. "This was my favourite series as a kid. I leant it to your Uncle Ricky ages ago."

"Uncle Rick said you read them all the time at school," Jake said.

"Yeah I did," Neil said, mind flashing back to nights spent under the covers with a flashlight to avoid the prefects patrolling the hallways. "Have  
you read them?"

The fact that he had to ask galled him.

"No," Jake replied. "I tried to, but the words kept blurring."

"I'd read it to you, but you're probably a bit too old to want that," Neil said absently, opening the front cover and smiling at the sight of his name written in the straggly hand of a twelve-year-old boy.

"You used to read to me all the time," Jake said. "I remember you'd get home from work, and mum would yell at you for keeping me up late and making me laugh with your funny voices."

"Good times," Neil smiled at him.

"Read to me," the words exploded from his son's mouth. "Please?"

A smile spread across Neil's face, and was returned by an identical one on his son's face.

"Okay," Neil said, moving to sit back in his chair by the side of the bed. "Ready?"

"Go go go," Jake said with a small smile. Neil chuckled, glad to see a return of humour in his son. He opened the book to the first page and cleared his throat as Jake wriggled under the bedcovers, lying on his side to face his dad.

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton," Neil began.

When soft snores started issuing from Jake's still form, two chapters later, Neil marked the page and set it back on the table beside the bed, making a mental note to thank Ricky. Doing his best to be quiet, he opened his briefcase and pulled out the first case file.

* * *

Stevie dashed through reception, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other as she waited for a smirking Leon to buzz her through. A combination of a banging hangover and poor traffic (and perhaps a general inability to set her alarm correctly) had resulted in her running – she glanced at her watch, 8.20 – twenty minutes late for work, again. No doubt she'd earn another of DI Manson's bitchy and snarky reprimands for it. Finally pushing through the glass door, she dashed up the stairs.

Entering CID, she didn't bother glancing to the side, diving instead for her chair and waiting for the inevitable reprimand. When none was forthcoming, she looked around in confusion.

"Hangover, sarge?" Mickey asked cheekily.

"Shut it, you," Stevie glared at him. "Your fault anyway. Where's the DI?"

* * *

"Sorry," Jake gasped. He'd been eating breakfast when the nausea had overpowered him.

"It's okay," Neil said, feeling slightly sick himself with the smell of the vomit that had sprayed on his clothes and on Jake's sheets.

"I don't like this," Jake half-sobbed. Neil rubbed his back gently, wishing fervently that the nurse would hurry up.

"Oh," it was Ellie, looking tired from her night shift. "Now, now, it's all right, Jake, we'll get you cleaned up in no time."

Neil couldn't help but admire the young woman's efficiency as she calmed Jake down and reassured both of them with a smile and comment that hospital food made her nauseous too. She got Jake off the bed and in the bathroom as Neil dug through the bag for a fresh set of clothes. He passed them into the bathroom as Ellie stripped the bed with alarming quickness, swapping the soiled linens for clean ones which were carried in by a trainee nurse.

Neil could hear the taps turn on in the bathroom as Ellie plumped the pillows on the bed.

"Mr Manson, I'm just going to get the doctor on call to come in and have a look at your son," she said. "Just routine."

Neil nodded as she left.

"Sorry about your suit, Dad," Jake said in a subdued voice, emerging from the bathroom five minutes later.

"It's okay, I'll just drop it off before work," Neil said, reflexively checking the time on the clock. Cursing inwardly, he helped Jake get back into bed then grabbed his own overnight bag and ducked into the bathroom, washing off quickly. He'd have to stop off by home before work and pick up a spare clean suit as well, for the next day, Neil thought as he wrestled his trousers on. He stepped back into the room to find himself face to face with Ellie and Dr Maitland, one of the junior doctors attached to Jake's consultant paediatrician. They were looking at a piece of paper, and met his gaze with a look he'd seen - and worn himself - all too often.

It was the look of someone about to do a death knock.

Heart heavy in his chest, Neil walked over to the bed where Jake sat up looking subdued. Taking his hand, he faced the two doctors, determined to remain strong for his son.

* * *

Neil's gaze drifted down to the clock in his car – 8.25am. Crap. He'd gone home to find a stack of mail and no clean clothes, having not had the time to do the laundry. Neil had haphazardly bundled his dirty shirts into the washing machine, then realised from the smell he'd left a carton of milk on the counter when he'd last been home...two days ago? That had needed to be thrown out, along with the magazine catalogues for – among other things – maternity wear and tricycles. The stack of bills had had to be scrunched into the side pocket of his bulging briefcase.

_Shit_, Neil cursed again as he stalked through reception, his glare causing the smirk on PC Taylor's face to fall right off. Pushing through the door he trotted up the stairs and into his office, pulling out the stack of files and grabbing the ones off the top.

"Rough morning, gov?" Mickey asked, cheeky grin on his face.

"Lilly didn't sign the witness statement," Manson barked, slapping the file down on Mickey's desk. "Stevie, you didn't complete the Incident form fully, and Grace, CPS wants Luke Powers' trousers sent for analysis."

"Gov, about that obbo on –" Max began, hurrying after the DI as he headed back to his office.

"Has any new evidence come to light yesterday to suggest that Franklin is involved?" Neil demanded, turning around.

"No, but –"

"Then what you have is circumstantial. I can't justify the cost, DS Carter, bring me evidence and then we'll discuss an obbo," Neil snapped, before turning back around.

The door slammed shut in Max's face.

"How'm I supposed to get the evidence he wants if I can't mount an obbo?" Max seethed in frustration.

Inside his office, Neil switched on his computer and waited for it to power up. His gaze drifted down to the photo of Jake that rested next to it and without thinking he reached over and slammed it facedown before furiously typing his password in.

One step forward in his relationship with Jake, one step back in Jake's health. He'd been grateful to Dr Maitland for her cool, detached and factual manner in delivering the news, allowing him to deal with Jake's emotions and questions rather than his own.

But now the news was beginning to sink in, and if he hadn't known what to do before, he certainly didn't know what to do now.

FIN

* ALL – acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the most common form of leukaemia found in children.


End file.
